The assembly and use of microelectronic devices generally takes place in an environment that must be clean and non-corrosive to the devices being assembled and/or used there. When the environment is not clean, the microelectronic devices present in the room may fail. This adds significant cost in materials and time, and may compromise device reliability.
Examples of the causes of failures that have been observed for microelectronic components are: 1) tin whiskers such as from plating and/or solder stresses; 2) creep corrosion from copper sulfide crystals growing radially on a component; 3) electrochemical migration such as dendrite growth; 4) parasitic leakage that may cause a reduction in resistance without a visible short; 5) airborne metal particles such as zinc whiskers; and 6) small airborne particles such as smoke.
There is a need for a way to test microelectronic processing systems, components, and environments to determine whether a process and/or its components may experience unacceptable failure rates when the process is performed in a specific work environment or when the components are exposed to an environmental gas such as the air in a work environment. The present invention addresses that need.